Reviews and Testimonials

Here’s what the press and our previous customers have had to say about our courses...

The Guardian

"More than I ever managed in five years of French at school."

In this three page article, The Guardian's Tom Meltzer tried out the first day and a half of our Mandarin Chinese course.

The Guardian article describes how Tom studied at The Paul Noble Language Institute for just ten hours before heading off to London’s Chinatown "to test Noble's teaching in conversation with native speakers."

Tom describes the experience of learning with us as being "entirely the opposite of the brain straining I had envisaged" and states that in those ten hours studying Chinese at The Paul Noble Language Institute, he achieved "more than I ever managed in five years of French at school."

The article concluded with Tom visiting a restaurant in London Chinatown, where he was not only able to order a meal but was also able to chat and joke with the waitress who brought it to him entirely in Mandarin Chinese; at the end of the meal, the waitress informed him: "you speak very well."

City Life Magazine

"Minimal effort but guaranteed results."

This two page spread looked at the Paul Noble Language Institute, its courses and its revolutionary way of teaching. The review discussed how "students find themselves retaining vast amounts of malleable vocabulary without much conscious effort”. It added that "the benefit of Paul’s approach is the ability it gives students to piece the language together for themselves and actually speak it, which is after all what we learn languages for... I found that I seemed to absorb the phrases taught, without even consciously trying, and quickly felt confident enough to play around with the different components and make my own sentences."

MENSA Magazine

An in-depth article looking at the dramatic progress made by our students after studying just a few hours with us.

"Paul Noble has developed a system that allows students to learn foreign languages in a revolutionary way."

This two page spread looked at the Paul Noble Language Institute and its revolutionary way of teaching, in particular its ability to help those students who "studied a language for three or four years at school, yet came out unable to say very much". As the article says, students who study at the Paul Noble Language Institute find that, by contrast, they "leave classes after the first few hours actually able to construct their own sentences and communicate".

The Daily Telegraph

Rated by the Daily Telegraph as the UK's top language courses.

"The Paul Noble Language Institute in London promises it will have you holding conversations in your chosen language by the end of a weekend ...you learn more than 1,500 words in the first two hours (and, more to the point, remember them). Formidable!"

Kerry Thomson

Senior Capital Markets Manager, PricewaterhouseCoopers

"It made learning German simple, breaking it down into very easy steps and actually enabled you to use the language rather than just learning phrases or words but it actually makes it possible to use it and to be able to speak it properly. It contrasts dramatically with other experiences I've had of trying to learn foreign languages, where the teachers use incomprehensible grammar terms or other methods that, for me, just don't seem to work at all. I feel I've learnt more in the past two days than I had in the previous two years. Thank you.".

Tiffany-Dawn Waddleton

Sculptor

"I’m dyslexic and dysgraphic and used to believe that was the reason I had such an impossible time learning languages. I barely passed the mandatory level French classes during primary and secondary school in Canada despite my best efforts. I first heard about The Paul Noble Language Institute in the September issue of Mensa Magazine (UK) and was intrigued. Actually, I was so excited that resolved to take the first course spot available - which ended up being my tried-to-study-with-no-notable-success French. To be honest, I was a little scared that I would simply repeat my earlier failure but decided to try anyhow.

When I went into the weekend course both my hopes and my expectations were high, and they were exceeded - by far. Within minutes Paul had our class speaking French, within hours we were learning and applying complex grammar rules to our speech, by the end of the weekend I can honestly say I learned and remembered more than in all the years of traditional classroom learning combined. Paul makes learning easy and comfortable. I never felt pressured. I always felt encouraged. I was never made to feel stupid if I didn’t pick up on something immediately (as I constantly did when trying to learn languages in school). In fact, Paul made it clear that if I didn’t pick something up, it was HIS fault because he hadn’t explained it adequately - and from his eyes and body language you could tell he was sincere – which made me feel okay if I didn’t get everything right, right away. Then he went through it until I got it right. And get it right I did – and it wasn’t even that hard! If I could learn French by Paul’s method, anyone can. I wish Paul and his language institute all the best for the future and look forward to learning more languages the ‘Paul Noble Way’ in years to come.".

Jenny Rogers

Chief Executive of Leap: Confronting Conflict

"I feel like the course led us, with minimal effort, into speaking French but without having really noticed it happening. I'm utterly amazed by it. I never felt pressurised at any point during the course; I think that's because the way the language is taught makes you feel clever rather than stupid or confused, which I think is the problem with a lot of language courses. But this was just great - and I can't recommend it highly enough."

Ali Scott

Trainee Police Officer

"I have long struggled with learning languages but I found the course to be simply amazing. Paul takes a very simple and logical approach and has endless amounts of patience. He is a fantastic teacher and brings a lot of his own experiences with learning languages to the course, which I feel are probably the same as the vast majority of attendees’. I came to the initial weekend course with quite a lot of French words already, with the desire to be able to finally hold a conversation. Following the course, I now feel confident and more importantly competent with speaking to native French speakers and I even tested my new found knowledge in Paris the weekend after the course – with success. I would recommend The Paul Noble Language Institute to anyone and everyone, whether you are a complete beginner or if you have a basic working knowledge of a language already, either way the course would enable anyone to be able to start speaking confidently in another language."

Patrick Rout

Retired Police Officer

"I thought the course was amazing, in particular because it was so relaxing. It was the first time I've ever tried studying a language where I didn't feel stressed at all. Thank you for this; it was just what I needed - and probably what everyone else needs too. It just made the language seem so simple and easy to learn."

Kumru Herrmann

Housewife

"The course was so interesting; it was amazing how the language was pulled apart and then put together again by us ourselves, so that we can actually now leave and speak German. It's been really wonderful for me personally and is just what I needed."

Jennifer Trindiville

Housewife

"I never did any good at school, for ‘O’ Levels or anything like that and I definitely never thought I’d be able to speak Spanish. But we bought a small holiday home in Spain three years ago and I got sick of not being able to say anything. I tried an evening class but didn’t get anywhere at all. Then I read a review in the paper about the Institute and I decided to come and try it. It was really brilliant. I can speak Spanish now and I love doing things like going down to the market to buy fruit and chatting to the stallholders or to the other women who I now know down there. It’s changed everything."

Ann Chan

Lecturer in Accounting and Finance, University of Liverpool

"My Paul Noble language review is for a two day Italian course I attended last summer. Unlike some people on my course, I had studied languages before – but never like this. Our instructor took the whole class on a real linguistic journey and, by the end of it, we were speaking the language. It was a unique and special experience in my life. Thank you so much."

Joanne McGuire

Housewife

"It was always my dream to be able to speak French. I always thought that it was a very romantic language. I did ‘O’ Level at school and spent several holidays over there but could never really say much beyond bonjour and merci. This is no-longer the case. I can make up my own sentences and actually communicate what I want to say now. The course the Paul Noble Language Institute did for me was so confidence building that I actually can’t shut up speaking the language. It made it easy to talk and, importantly, to go on learning more afterwards. Fabuleux!"